Sunday, October 26, 2008

Quick note: Aspect of the Viper is being changed to work on melee in a coming patch, which is good since I have horrible mana problems right now. In the meantime, I found that AotV works with my Thrown weapon. Weird.

This completely validates the need to have raised my Thrown skill. It would be foolish not to put something in that slot for the stats, but if I have an item in the slot, my pet's crit rate decreases if the skill for the weapon type isn't leveled.

I adore the practice dummies in Ironforge. They are a godsend to theorycrafters.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

The Survival tree looks pretty sorry these days, as far as melee hunting goes. Too many points have to be wasted to get to any of the good stuff. Compare a level 70 beast master build with a possible level 70 hybrid. Four points wasted on Surefooted and Deflection, no Focused Aim (for the hit chance), five points blown on Survivalist just to get Hunter vs. Wild. Beast Mastery is the future of melee hunting.

There are a couple of unanswered questions:

When Focused Aim says it increases "chance to hit by 3%", does that include melee hit, or just ranged? I'm assuming both, since it doesn't say otherwise. I suppose I'll find that out when I respec tonight.

When Petopia claims that "pets now inherit the hunter's hit rate and critical rate as well", does it mean my melee or ranged crit rate? Presumably ranged, especially since pet AP is derived from your RAP, but I won't know until I run some tests with Recount since the pet panel doesn't yet display your pet's hit and crit rate.

But regarding that... your chance to crit is in part determined by your weapon skill. Now, since Levixus boned my Thrown skill, I went ahead and leveled my Thrown skill to 350. Since doing that, I see in the Armory that my ranged crit chance is now 19.47%, far ahead of the untalented 3-4% it was a couple days ago. While Thrown weapons don't count toward using ranged hunter attacks, apparently Thrown weapons do count toward your ranged crit chance, meaning that from here on out I'll want to always use a Thrown weapon and maintain its skill, for the sake of the ranged crit chance from it that my pet will inherit.

Pre-patch, I spent a while regemming and reenchanting for raw AP, in anticipation of the Aspect of the Beast buff. If I'm to be a Beast Master, I want to beef up my pet as much as possible. But I chose raw AP before I saw from Petopia that pets are now supposed to inherit your crit chance. Now I'm rolling in Attack Power (2004 AP/1942 RAP/19.47% crit), but lacking in the notoriously scalable Agility. Again, some tests with Recount are called for. I'll go maul something tonight until I'm out of mana, record the numbers, and consider a retest once I'm back to a more balanced gear configuration.

Just to be sure, I logged onto my Troll hunter alt and equipped him with a Thrown weapon. His entire Marksmanship tree went red, as all the real Hunter goodies read, "Requires Ranged Weapon." Praise Elune.

So, I guess I have a decision to make. My status as melee hunter isn't broken, since even using a Thrown weapon does nothing to make the meat-and-potatoes hunter skills available to you. I can't Arcane Shot, I can't Scorpid Sting. As God intended. So, really, I guess I have to ask, do I live with this wart and maintain my Thrown skill at 4, or do I go ahead and train it up?

On a happier note, congratulations to reader Wren on reaching 40 with his own melee hunter!